Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

Timely information delivered over radio waves dates back to the earliest stations and before (→  Radio ; Radio: Social History ; news ). Lee de Forest reported the election night results via radio in 1916 and the first licensed US station to report election returns was KDKA in 1920. By 1924, radio broadcasts became a major influence on →  public opinion because they could report live events. Radio news in the UK first gained attention during the General Strike of 1926, which briefly halted newspaper publication. Radio →  newscasts , however, did not appear in the US until the 1930s, relegating emergency and event coverage to the wireless medium. By 1933, the wire services that supplied news to most newspapers decided to withhold news wire stories from radio, until radio newscasters agreed to limit their reporting to twice per day, at times (9.30 a.m. and 9 p.m., for just five minutes) that protected the newspapers (→  News Agencies, History of ). By 1935 competing wire services began to supply US radio stations and the newspaper–radio war was over by 1939 ( Culbert 1976 ). Unlike the US and the UK, radio in many other countries was controlled by the government. In Germany, for example, Hans Fritzsche began offering news broadcasts on behalf of the von Papen regime's Wireless News Service in 1932, which fell under the control of Joseph Goebbels's Propaganda Ministry in 1933. During ... log in or subscribe to read full text